


When He Needs Someone

by ThatWildWolf



Series: When I Need You [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s01e01 Rose, Feel-good, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, leads into
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 22:03:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15180329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWildWolf/pseuds/ThatWildWolf
Summary: Gallifrey was gone, but a chance meeting made him realize it wasn't the only thing that mattered to him.A bit less on the fluff, a bit more on the angst.





	When He Needs Someone

* * *

Gone.

This was the only word he could think of. It echoed in his head over and over again as he tried his best not to just drown in his despair.

Everyone was gone.

No more Daleks, but no more Time Lords. There was only him. He was alone in the whole universe. No more would he come home. His home didn't exist anymore; as if the death of the Time Lords wasn't enough, Gallifrey itself had disappeared from the sky. There was literally no place in the universe he could call home. How come had it happened so fast?

The last thing he remembered was stealing the Moment, the most dangerous weapon in the universe, with the very intention to threaten both the Time Lords and the Daleks, the next ... He was in his TARDIS. Newly regenerated. Alone.

It was his fault.

He had killed them all.

So what did that make him? A killer? The greatest mass murderer in the history of the universe? To commit genocide on his own race... He had lost any right to be the Doctor. There was nothing that could possibly justify what he had done.

He had _murdered_...

He screamed in rage, kicking and punching bits of the TARDIS until a few control panels exploded, showering him with sparks. He didn't stop. He delivered pain both to the ship and to himself, and he knew that he was the one who deserved it. After all, what was the proper punishment for what he had done? There was none. There wasn't an appropriate punishment because what he had done exceeded any crime ever committed in the history of war.

He wasn't a killer. He was a monster.

He stopped when he didn't have any physical strength to keep on anymore and collapsed to the floor. The ship was practically burning all around him, but he seemed not to notice it. He was crying, harder than he ever had, longer than he would have ever believed possible, and more grievously than anyone had ever cried before.

When the tears wouldn't come anymore, he simply lay there, unaffected by the world around him, staring at the dark ceiling of the control room in a desperate attempt not to _think._ He had no idea how long he had spent like that, laying on the floor of his TARDIS in a pool of his blood and tears, hoping that if he ignored the universe, the universe would ignore him.

_And that is your punishment._ The words echoed in his head like an old memory, although he could not remember ever hearing them before. _You live._

At that point he wasn't even sure if that was his conscience talking. If it was, it did a pretty good job at bringing him down.

He wasn't ready for life.

He didn't _want_ to live.

After what felt like centuries, the Time Lord rose from his place on the floor and slowly walked to the console panel. The room had managed to return to a state of relative usability. (The auto-repair circuit was probably the only thing that worked anymore.) The room had changed design, too, no doubt to - like always - adjust to his current state of mind. He didn't care (which was probably the reason why it actually looked as though he didn't). He just wanted to clear his mind.

He needed to go for a walk.

Even before he managed to enter any coordinates, the time rotor began rising and falling at a steady pace as the TARDIS set off... He didn't even care where, but what worried him was that the ship had decided to pick the destination on its own. It was almost as though it was telling him "I have something I want to show you."

He opened the door and exited the police box it was disguised at. 'Disguised' was maybe not the best word, as there weren't all that many police boxes in the 1980s anymore. He looked around in distaste. It was Earth. London.

He sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets angrily. He gave the TARDIS a reproachful look before walking away. If this was his ship's way of consoling him, then... He stopped dead in his tracks. He had been intending to state that it didn't work, but actually...

There were people all around him, talking on mobile phones or chatting casually among themselves. He could hear a few laughs.

He had been alone for so long that the very idea of life other than his own felt alien to him. The Time Lords were gone. What was left in the universe for him? Yet here they were; the human race, buzzing with life, as always. People who weren't affected by the Time War. Living day by day on their little planet in the corner of the universe.

He almost smiled. Life prevails. Even through the darkest of times, there always remains at least one spark of life. Maybe he was alone, but... The universe wasn't dead.

He took a step back, satisfied with himself at having understood what the TARDIS had been wanting to tell him, but somehow collapsed as he walked into someone else.

He quickly got up and looked at the young woman, who immediately began apologising.

"So sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me today," she started picking up the books she had been carrying, which were now laying all over the sidewalk. "I just keep on walking into people." He didn't point out that he was the one who walked into her. He didn't say anything, staring at her in something edging between wonder and disbelief.

It seemed almost impossible for anything he cared about to still exist.

He shook his head to clear his mind, kneeled down beside her and began helping her with the books. Books, he mused. Not grocery, not anything, but books. A _lot_ of books. How did she think she was going to carry all of that with only two hands?

"That's quite a number of titles," he casually noticed aloud. _British Military_ , _The History Of Conflict_ \- he caught a few names. "Pretty heavy subject, too." How old was she? Thirty? Thirty-something? Hell, did it even matter? She was there. Alive.

He didn't even dare to touch her as he passed her the books.

She blushed slightly at his last comment.

"I'm writing a book," she said in an explanatory tone. "About the United Nations' Intelligence Taskforce. This is simply some... research I needed."

He looked around, only at that point noticing that they were indeed standing by a library.

"I won't stop you then," he said. She gave him the most heartwarming smile and ran off with the large pile of books in her arms. "Good luck with your book!" He managed to call out after her.

She was happy. He found himself smiling despite anything he might have been feeling earlier. _She was happy._

Suddenly, he knew. He found the reason. He despised himself at the moment for what he had done, but... Yes, he supposed that, in the end, he had done what he had done without a choice. He had to, and he did.

He had fought for people like Sarah Jane Smith. Stood for those who couldn't fight themselves. The ones that really mattered were not the ones who had burnt along with their enemies. No, it was about the people who didn't even know about the war. He had fought for the billions of innocents who would never know that he did so. Maybe it was for the best. All those people on all these planets; the whole point of the Time War was for them not to get into harm's way. Timelocking the conflict to keep it from raging across all of time and space.

People like Sarah Jane would never even know.

It was a good thing. He wasn't going to forget about the weight of his sin or the pain that it had caused, but he wouldn't forget about the horrors of the War, either. He had stopped hell from destroying the universe more than it had already done. He wasn't proud of the way he had done it. It was wrong.

But, as he looked at the happy expression on the face of his former companion, the Time Lord decided that, in the end, the only way not to make the sacrifice meaningless was making sure the universe survived afterwards.

He would help out. He would travel through time and space - just like before, but not quite like before. He wouldn't kill, he wouldn't hurt. He would bring hope.

He would be the Doctor.

"Thanks," he whispered as he patted one side of the TARDIS before entering it. The quiet hum of the ship's engines was almost immediately interrupted by a distress signal - as though it wanted for him to find something to do. The Doctor jumped to the console with one quick move and regarded the red blinking diode. It was the indicator of an invasion of Nestene origin.

Earth.

2005.

He pulled a lever and the ship immediately set off towards its new destination - his new life.

The last time he had been on Earth was in 1999. A new millennium was going to be a great way for a new start. He was going to help. He was going to do what he had always been supposed to do. Be the Doctor.

And it was going to be fantastic.


End file.
